Easter Recipe

Want the perfect recipe for an Easter disaster?  It's easy, just combine one part Vomit with two parts Rain, stir gently, then sift in a Choking Child, an Hour-Long Cough Attack, and a pinch of High Fever.  Bake at 350 for twenty minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle on the Innocence of Childhood Lost and ta-da! Happy Easter!

Two weeks ago, in a fit of enthusiasm, we volunteered to have the family Easter party at our house.  Regina's good at this kind of thing, e.g. she plans in advance.  I'm perpetually surprised when major holidays (except St. Patricks Day) suddenly pop up.  Regina kept us on track: eggs were decorated or filled, pork and lamb roasts were ... uh, roasted, lemon bars were baked, and Dylan taped random school art on our walls.  Nothing says Easter like Dragons! Abe Lincoln! Ferris Wheel! and okay, an Easter Bunny or two.

By Sunday we were locked and loaded (this isn't a euphemism for getting drunk in the garage, alone) for the party.  And then it started raining.  And then I fed Grady a cashew.  He choked, he barfed, and he coughed for an hour.  Things were regressing quickly so I did what good dads do: I skeedaddled.  No, I didn't get locked and loaded in the garage, to my mother's joy, I took Dylan to Easter service.  By the time we got home, Grady was passed out from cough-exhaustion, the food was out, and the party was ready.

Princess Banana Peel helps

And that slow, downward spiral of a day turned itself around quickly.  Family and friends arrived with food and drink, we stuffed ourselves silly, and we watched four little critters find, then drop, eggs, which were then re-found and re-dropped in an infinite loop.  We finally called a timeout, put the remaining eggs in their baskets, and got ready for the Main Event: Big Kid Egg Hunting.

Two may enter, one may leave

To really spice things up, someone brought cash-filled eggs.  We hid cash and candy eggs in the front lot of our house, then turned the teenagers loose.  Think Bloodsport meets The Hunger Games and you'll get an idea of what we were privy to.  I saw my niece, who is barely recovered from a broken back, yes, a broken back, body slam her brother and dive for a plastic egg hidden in a squirrel hole.  My nieces and nephew sprinted, stiff-armed, and judo-rolled their way around the hunting grounds, then would stop and scour through piles of leaves like they'd lost a contact, all the while muttering, "Eggs ... the eggs."  It was great watching.

When the party ended, Grady, who had rebounded nicely after his fistfight with the cashew, crashed out in his bed in his diaper and collared shirt.  He looked like a fraternity pledge on initiation night.  We hid Dylan's basket outside and put her to bed where, hopped up on Peeps, she must have pondered the meaning of the day ... no, not the resurrection of Jesus, but the existence of the Easter Bunny.  The next day she woke up and asked Regina if parents are really the Easter Bunny.  "You really should ask your father that," she deftly maneuvered.

Despite the coughs and rain and existential Easter questions, and everything else that could have dragged a party down, the day was a success.  We celebrated with family and friends, we had health (at least most of the time), we had alcohol (locked and loaded, baby!), and we had action sports.  We couldn't have asked for more, it would just ruin the recipe.